Review of Brief Encounter (1945) by Honor B — 26 May 2008

[5/26/08].

I was inherently going to like this film. An illicit romance, high psychological attraction, the taste of doom before it even began... perfect Honor material. Celia Johnson is excellent, with her deep-set, aching eyes, unglamorous smile and threading shame. Her lack of conventional beauty lends the movie an even higher degree of truth and danger. How easily I could see myself mirrored in this character! The risky score, Rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto, was a heavy-handed decision, but Lean manages to pull it off surprisingly well. The style with which the concerto is woven throughout the plot was a clear precedent of the "set score" of "Rear Window" (1954). Lean's camera was wonderfully audacious and sometimes shockingly modern in its sensibilities. The suicide scene comes to mind. Or the wild, joyously shrieking couple streaking through the background, trailing their unhidden sexuality through the shot that's framed by the two lovers absorbed so completely in each other that they fail to notice. Like the lovers, I suddenly wanted to lose the world and live obsessively and solely through them. Lean cuts. The train pulls into the station. I've forgotten again: the world doesn't stop for idealism, no matter how beautiful.